


Aftermath

by One_Real_Imonkey



Series: Tarsus IV Logs [2]
Category: Star Trek
Genre: Coma, Into Darkness - Freeform, Not Really Character Death, Suicide mention, Tarsus IV
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-15
Updated: 2018-07-15
Packaged: 2019-06-11 00:53:36
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,025
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15303849
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/One_Real_Imonkey/pseuds/One_Real_Imonkey
Summary: After the logs of James T. Kirk are discovered, chaos ensues.These are a few different situations of the aftermath the ways it could be.Chapter one: in deathChapter two: in schoolChapter three: in comaChapter four:AN





	1. In Death

_"This is Captain Vivin_ _Guaviez_ _of the USS Memento. We responded to a recovery beacon on the Planet Tarsus IV and found it was an automatic beacon attached to some logs. Inside this file are the Logs of one James T. Kirk to be used as testimony against Governor_ _Kodos_ _. We are aware it has been almost 14 years since the tragedy occurred. With so little information available on the event, even now, we believed it would be wise to pass it on."_

When Starfleet had received this transmission, they had recalled many ships for the showing of the logs and for the announcements and trials. 

Kodos had managed to cover up most of his crimes, despite the obvious, the deaths of half the colony, they knew very little. They didn’t know why, they didn’t know how, they just knew that he had.

Now that might change.

Among the recalled officers were Captain Pike and his first officer Commander Spock.

“Captain, it would appear you are unnerved?”

“That’s one word for it Spock.”

“I understand, the event is tragic, it brings pain to learn about. Even on Vulcan, the massacre is seen as a delicate subject.”

“No Spock, this is worse. Kirk, he was my godson, he disappeared 16 years ago, his mother sent him to a school of planet and he never came back. Until today I never knew what happened to him, now... now I might find out he died on Tarsus and I don’t want to learn that because I could have stopped him from going. I should have... I knew something was wrong, I didn’t act on it, Jim disappeared. I gave up looking years ago. I don’t want to be the one to tell his mother he’s dead.”

“She does not know?”

“No-one knows what happened to him. She never mentioned him dead though, there was never a funeral or... well, when I asked she said she didn’t know, she’d lost contact but hadn’t cared to look. I should have done something.”

“Captain, I do not believe you did anything wrong, if he was not your child you were not responsible. For the loss of... Jim, I grieve with thee but I do not believe it is your burden to bare.”

“Thank you, Spock, but human guilt doesn’t work that way.”

The doors to the hall opened and they entered.

.

.

.

“Jim was JT, you know, I’m not surprised.”

Starfleet had found the body of JT, no-one knowing his real identity and no way for them to legally work it out, they’d buried him at the Tarsus IV memorial, a shrine to his heroics. A common theory was that they had decided to keep the identity hidden for media purposes, but now he found they just hadn’t know.

“You are unsurprised, Sir? I do not follow, is it because his father was a hero?”

“No, Jim was just that sort of kid, he never cared for himself if someone else was in danger. He died to save others, he was a hero.”

“May I have your attention, please?” Admiral Marcus announced, “It has been decided that James T. Kirk will be given a plot in Stevenson Military cemetery, in honour of his heroic actions on Tarsus IV.”

They were then dismissed and Spock and Pike wandered to the gardens.

“Captain, may I enquire as to why James Kirk will be buried in Stevenson, I was under the impression it was reserved for Heroes in Starfleet?”

“Usually it is, they’re making an exception because Jim has two Starfleet parents and saved almost 40 lives, he also attempted to save another 4000. That’s pretty heroic, don’t you think?”

“I agree, and I understand.”

.

.

.

Two months later found Christopher Pike standing in Stevenson, above the graves of George Kirk and next to him, James Kirk. He thanked his friend for his sacrifice once again, not only for his life but the lives of the people his son saved.

He was also left to wonder, what could Jim have been had he survived the massacre? Who could Jim Kirk have been?


	2. In School

_"This is Captain Vivin_ _Guaviez_ _of the USS Memento. We responded to a recovery beacon on the Planet Tarsus IV and found it was an automatic beacon attached to some logs. Inside this file are the Logs of one James T. Kirk to be used as testimony against Governor_ _Kodos_ _. We are aware it has been almost_ _10_ _years since the tragedy occurred. With so little information available on the event, even now, we believed it would be wise to pass it on."_

 

Jim kirk was enjoying Starfleet Acadamy until the transmission came through. 

The announcement that his logs existed, that he had been on Tarsus, had ruined the only good thing that had ever happened to him.

Bones found him 20 minutes after the transmission was received in their dorm room. 

“Christ, Jim.”

He was aware he looked awful, tear tracks down his face and half a bottle of whiskey in his hand. McCoy confiscated that first.

“Starfleet has no damn tact, how stupid can they be, damnit?”

“I’m quitting, Bones. I can’t do this. I can’t have everyone knowing, the stares, the questions, I can’t do it.”

McCoy didn’t respond other than sliding into a seated position next to him and wrapping an arm around his shoulder. Jim leaned into the hug with a sob.

“I hate Tarsus, it ruined everything for me and just when things start looking up again, when I finally started getting over it, it comes back and destroys everything all over again. I... I can’t live with this Bones, the pain, the knowing I made it out and they didn’t, knowing I've killed and the blood on my hands and not even feeling guilty about it because they deserved it damnit, they deserved to die. I hate that I lived and I hate that I’m never going to escape.”

And Jim sobbed into his shoulder for the rest of the night.

 

The next day was arguably worse, the questions came swarming in. Somehow the media had accessed the files and everyone knew what they said. 

Suddenly people were asking about their relatives, the honest and naïve were asking insensitive questions, not knowing how much it hurt and the cruel... the cruel were worse than the unassuming and the desperate combined.

They asked questions they knew bit at Jim’s soul, what it was like to kill, did he feel guilty, how did it feel to watch the life leave a friend's eyes?

How dare they?

How fucking dare they? 

Bones hated every second of it because there was nothing he could do. The admiralty tried but Kirk’s deterioration was visible. Every new day he was thinner, the bags under his eyes darker, skin paler. 

No-one was shocked when he finally pulled the trigger and ended it all.

He’d survived the hardship only to be killed by the aftermath.


	3. In Coma

_"This is Captain Vivin_ _Guaviez_ _of the USS Memento. We responded to a recovery beacon on the Planet Tarsus IV and found it was an automatic beacon attached to some logs. Inside this file are the Logs of one James T. Kirk to be used as testimony against Governor_ _Kodos_ _. We are aware it has been almost_ _10_ _years since the tragedy occurred. With so little information available on the event, even now, we believed it would be wise to pass it on."_  

 

In Spock’s opinion, the message could not have been received at a more troubling time. Only a week after Khan’s attack on Starfleet, his captain was still in a coma, showing no signs of waking. Considering the cause of his coma, this was still and improvement. 

In truth, he hadn’t known at first what a coma was, Vulcan’s didn’t become comatose, the closest approximation was a healing trance. To find that humans could fall into a state in which they may never wake, when their bodies didn’t have the energy to wake, that the captain may never wake from this half-alive state, it had sent him reeling. 

He had found out only an hour after the message had been received, a nurse had called Dr McCoy out of the room to inform him and then the doctor had done the same for him. 

He had been informed that coma patients could hear the world around them so the conversation had been in the corridor, and after hearing the news, Spock agreed it was for the best. The captain would not appreciate learning something like this. 

He had not expected something like this in the captain's past.  

He knew there was something, something detrimental to his physical health in childhood, he could tell by the scars covering his body, the awareness of others even when they were silent, the way he could forget to eat of sleep and not notice if another was in danger, his pain tolerance. Still, Tarsus IV had never even occurred to him, the trauma and horror of it. 

He did not wish to see the captain’s reaction to knowing others now knew.  

Because he knew the captain would be ashamed, 

Because he knew the captain would be forced to remember what he would not want to, 

. 

. 

. 

When the captain woke a week later they tried to keep it from him, in fact they managed for a week. It was given away when he’d taken a padd for personal reasons. 

Reasons he later found to be a small leather-bound book. 

He'd seen the captain with it before, seen it on the side of his bed in his quarters, but he hadn’t known what it was until then. 

The captain had fallen asleep, the little book on his bedside, and so he had, in a moment of human weakness, let his curiosity win and picked it up. He seemed to have a lot of moments like that recently. 

_Maylin_ _Lee: Fire_  

_Steve_ _Winsten_ _: Fire_  

_William_ _Nerris_ _: Tarsus_  

_Belle_ _Porter: Tarsus_  

_John Cormack: Tarsus_  

_Emilia_ _Lengrosa_ _: Tarsus_  

He flipped forwards a few pages and found more names, one on every line. Flipping to about a quarter of the way in he found the names became Vulcan. It was filled two thirds full of names in total and it took him a few moments to realise what the book was. 

Names of the dead, names of people the Captain felt he couldn’t save. Every person who died on Tarsus IV, in the Narada attack, the destruction of Vulcan, the attack 3 weeks ago. He checked the padd to find two tabs open, one the fatality list and the other the news article on the Tarsus Logs being recovered. 

They were just fortunate that the media didn’t know most of the details. 

With the media not knowing much and all the data classified, life was fortunately not too different, they were lucky, and Kirk just had to focus on his recovery. 

On getting back onto his feet and back into the stars. 


	4. AN

If anyone wants to write a chapter like this or based off of my first story, go ahead but please tell me first. 

If you do write something and have questions on any of the OC characters made for this I am more than willing to give direction and character attributes, likes and dislikes, backstory etc. 

For example, Mal is called Malady because her parents didn’t plan her and thought she was a plague on their lives. She was later adopted by her dads, both of whom serve as Fleet officers. They love and care for her much more than her birth parents did. She has hazel eyes and blonde hair with teal streaks in it. She was sent to Tarsus after ‘accidently’ setting the lab of the ship she was living in on fire. She chose to keep her name as a way to spite her birth parents and stay original. (There is more but this is the sort of info I might have on characters, if you want it, just ask.)

I prefer Spirk but use any ships you wish.

Thank you to everyone who reads, likes and reviews my stories, it inspires me.


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